There is fine patience and broad charity in the woman who plants a tree. No single action better typifies the real purpose of our living.
From the first tree has furnished man with shelter and fuel. Under its leafy dome the greatest charter of human rights has been signed; the world's greatest treaties have there been written; and the surrender of great armies has been concluded there. But for the tree, human history would be a thin tale soon told.
Beneath the tree the weary have rested and found strength and hope; there lovers have trysted ever since love first illuminated the world; and there children have played and restored it; to the soothing shade man ever has turned from his troubles and found calm and peace.
She who plants a tree may never enjoy its shade or gaze upon its full-grown splendor; but she is doing what she can to make the world a wholesomer and happier dwelling place for those who come after her.
She who plants a tree, plants shade, rest, love, hope, peace, for troubled ones who will come her way when she is gone.
There is nothing in which God asks so little of us, and gives so much, as in the planting of a tree. God gives the soil, the seed, the moisture, the sunshine, the air -- yes, and the selfless impulse to do our littler part of just planting it.
-- Charles Grant Miller, from "Country Life", Sept. 1910
